


my heart is like a stallion

by findyourstars



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Barrel racing, English Riding, F/F, Modern AU, Western Riding, equestrian AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 13:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12706305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findyourstars/pseuds/findyourstars
Summary: Clarke Griffin is an established barrel racer in her rural hometown, and though she has no plans to ever go pro, she's happy with her lot in life. That is until the talented but arrogant Lexa Woods moves to her barn, attracting attention from the local riding community with both her and her horse's pedigree.Clarke doesn't like her one bit. Thankfully that's not where our story ends.aka because I really, really wanted to write an equestrian AU





	my heart is like a stallion

**Author's Note:**

> Oooh boy, I sure never thought I'd be writing anything in this fandom again! But I've wanted to write an equestrian AU with these girls for a long time, and now that it's NaNo, I figured there was no better time!
> 
> A lot of my time these days is spent with my own mare, and they say write what you know, yeah? Hope you enjoy!
> 
> My love and appreciation goes out to endgirl, who continues to nudge me with horse questions for her own fic (which is absolutely amazing and you should 100% check it out) and inspired me to finally get this plane off the ground.

The metal of the bleachers is cool through Clarke’s jeans. It’s been a sweltering July day, but with the setting of the sun has come a welcome drop in temperature, and the evening is finally pleasant. She leans back and props her dusty boots up on the lower level of the bleachers, relaxing into the sights and sounds of the show around her.

They’re between events right now at the little saddle club in rural Tennessee, and the volunteers are dragging the arena to even out the footing. Clarke knows that she probably has another half hour before she even has to think about saddling up - Boone is tied to the trailer, probably dozing - so she allows herself to take a deep breath and sip at her bottled coke.

“Nothing hard tonight?” The bleachers are clanging with motion, and Clarke looks up to see Raven hobbling across to take a seat next to her. She’s not showing tonight, but she drove the trailer over from their barn.

Clarke tilts her head in question. Raven elaborates.

“Alcohol,” she says, gesturing to the soft drink fizzing in Clarke’s hand. She settles herself on the cool metal, using her hands to drag her left leg into a more comfortable position. Clarke can see it in the set of her mouth: it’s a bad night for pain.

Clarke huffs a laugh. “I don’t think Boone would appreciate if I got on her drunk.”

“Red always _loved_ when I was drunk,” Raven deadpanned, and as was the case for about 40% of their interactions, Clarke wasn’t sure if she was serious or just fucking with her.

“What is it next anyways, gaited classes?” She offers Raven a swig of her drink, which the trainer takes in spite of her teasing.

“Nah. Hunt seat, I think.”

Clarke tips her head back and groans. “I’m tired of watching warmbloods tiptoe around the arena, it’s so boring.”

Raven huffs a laugh. “Yup. But they know we’ll all leave if they put the western events first.”

Raven used to show English, Clarke remembers as she watches the first competitor walk a leggy Arab into the arena. The girl is young, and her grasp on the reins is iron-hard with nerves, and Clarke can see the mare beginning to gape her mouth around the bit with discomfort. Raven had shown dressage, and hunter jumper, and eventually eventing, which is how she’d ended up crushed beneath a dying mount with irreparable nerve damage to her leg. _You don’t fuck around when you’re on a horse,_ Raven tells all her students seriously, and one look at the brace around her leg is usually enough to sober up even the most cocky riders.

Back in the arena, the rider cues for a trot, and the Arab tries to leap into a canter, her front legs beginning an awkward three-beat while her back legs prance anxiously. The girl _drags_ on the reins, hard enough that both Raven and Clarke wince, and the mare responds by rolling her eyes wildly and tossing her head up, grinding them both to a halt as the girl fights with her mount, struggling to dominate, and Clarke just wants to go in there and smack her over the head. 

“I hate this,” she sighs to Raven, who has her hands curled into loose fists on her thighs. “That’s a perfectly good horse, and she’s ruining her.”

“Look at her hindquarters,” Raven says instead. Clarke looks again, and sure enough, as the pair struggle, the Arab has scooped her hindquarters ever so slightly beneath her, preparing to pop up into the beginnings of a rear at the slightest provocation.

But the girl goes on to finish the pattern, albeit incorrectly, and her face is red as she leaves the arena and angrily dismounts, then throws her reins towards someone who could be a parent or a trainer and storms off to the trailers.

“More money than sense,” Clarke grouses, and Raven just shrugs.

“That’s about 80% of the sport, Clarke.”

Clarke has seen most of the participants in these shows before — it’s a fairly small community, and the number of riders who are good enough to actually make a ripple is even smaller.

Which is why when the brunette on the sleek warmblood begins her run, she takes notice.

She’s dressed in the required coat and tall boots, every inch of her crisp and purposeful. Her mount is a tall, lean gelding with a fine face and delicate legs that barely seem to strike the ground in an elegant, elevated trot, and Clarke’s eyebrows slowly creep higher.

“Look at the stride on that thing,” she comments to Raven, whose eyes are also riveted on this graceful, professional duo. “It has to have some Arab in its bloodlines.”

“I don’t know,” Raven replies, “that frame is all Thoroughbred.”

She knows long before the girl finished her pattern that she’ll win the class, and when their names are announced, Clarke types it into her phone notes to look up later. Even if the girl only shows English, a run like that means that she has serious experience, and she’s worth keeping an eye on.

_“And first place goes to Lexa Woods on Paladin’s Code.”_

—

Clarke double-checks her girth, the back cinch, and her bridle — the leather is wearing thin, it’s about time to buy a new one — and gives Boone a final pat on the neck. The dun mare stands patiently while Clarke sticks her left foot in the stirrup, grabs a handful of mane, and swings up into the saddle with a fluidity born of years of practice. Once she’s settled and Boone has softened on the bit, Clarke leads them towards the arena.

It’s the warm-up period before the western classes, and the wide oval of the arena is a tangle of barely-controlled chaos. As Clarke pauses Boone by the fence, she watches the pattern of traffic and reads the riders. As is typical for the first few minutes of schooling, the young and hotheaded riders are out riding at full gallops, tearing around the arena like they’re trying to set records. As Clarke watches, one bay gelding spooks at an advertising banner flapping in the breeze and does a 180 degree rollback, almost unseating his rider before she gets control. Clarke runs an absent hand along Boone’s withers, tangling her fingers into the short strands of mane.

“All right, lady,” she says softly to her, and nudges her into a walk. She takes Boone in lazy figure-eights, softening both sides of her face, then her shoulders, ribcage, and hips until the mare is responding to the slightest touch from Clarke’s reins or legs. Boone’s a pro, and it only takes about five or six minutes before Clarke clucks her tongue and asks her to pick up a jog, then an extended trot.

They begin to trot wide circles around the outskirts of the arena, the familiar two-beat of the trot echoing in her ears. After two full circles in each direction, the arena has begun to clear somewhat, and Clarke puts her hands forward and takes a deep breath.

Boone’s ears prick back to Clarke, and she’s primed like a loaded gun when Clarke makes a kissing noise with her lips and asks for more speed. Boone _leaps_ into the canter, unbalancing Clarke for a heartbeat before she allows her hips to flow with the rolling motion of the new gait and remembers to get her heels _down_ , goddammit (it’s Raven’s voice yelling in her head). She checks Boone gently with the reins, asking her to take the speed down a notch, and with an irritated ear flick, the mare complies.

This little mare is built for speed, but Clarke won’t open her up all the way until they’re running for home.

She keeps Boone in a lazy, controlled lope for one-and-a-half circles of the arena, working on corners and lead changes briefly before sinking back into the saddle and murmuring “ _Whooooa_.”

Sometime over the last year that they’ve been together, Boone has taught herself how to stop off of vocal commands, and Clarke delights in it as she brings her mare back to a walk without touching the reins. Boone is puffing a little, mostly from excitement, and she shakes out her head, then her entire body, like a dog coming out of a lake.

“I think we’re good, hmm?” Clarke coos to her, leaning forward to scratch her behind the ears before leading her out of the arena.

Raven is waiting by the trailers, and Clarke smiles as she dismounts. “How did we look?”

Raven shrugs noncommittally. “She’s still sticky picking up that left lead, but she didn’t look as hyped as she was at Westbrook.”

Clarke sighs in relief. The Westbrook show six weeks ago had been a complete nightmare — Boone had acted like a hot wire, and Clarke had thrown the barrel class in order to get the mare back under a semblance of control. It’s nice to see her mount back as she usually is: calm, collected, and largely unflappable.

There are several classes up before Clarke’s, but now that they’re finally in the Western realm, Clarke takes some time to clean her boots and adjust Boone’s tack. Out in the arena, children are walking their horses through the barrel pattern one by one, and the brave ones are trotting home. Clarke can’t help but smile at the tiny blonde pigtails poking out of one girl’s hot pink helmet.

By the time her class rolls around, there’s a familiar anxiety roiling in the pit of her stomach, but she swallows it back as she puts Boone’s bridle back on and leads the mare to the gate. 

She’s third in the class, and Boone is ready to run, tugging at the bit as Clarke walks her in lazy circles within view of the gate. Then she’s on deck, then up next, and Boone is prancing in place in the chute before _bam_ , they take off flying, the wind almost snatching the cowboy hat from Clarke’s head as they whip around the first barrel. The footing is deep here, and Clarke can feel Boone dragging through the thick dirt, but if there’s one thing her little mare loves more than anything, it’s these barrels.

Clarke’s shoulders are rising as they make their pocket perfectly on the final barrel, but she keeps contact on her inside rein, keeping Boone from dropping her shoulder at the last minute as they clear the last barrel. The length of the arena stretches before them, clear and inviting, and Boone kicks into another gear that Clarke is always surprised by, and she leans low along her neck as they fly towards home like an arrow loosed from a bow.

Boone is never quite as good at stopping, and Clarke has to grab the back of her saddle to keep from flying forward into the dirt as she reins her mare around into a loose circle and slows her to a trot, then a walk. Boone is puffing, her ears flicking back and forth like she’s ready to run some more, but as Clarke gives her a pat on the neck and whispers words of encouragement into her ear, she begins to settle, and she gives a long sigh.

Clarke hasn’t even looked at her time, but she had felt fast, and all of her barrels had stayed up. Raven would know it, and as she looks up she sees her trainer limping down the hill, leaning lightly on a cane. Clarke dismounts and gives Boone another rub along her withers and loosens her girth slightly. 

But by the time Raven draws within earshot, Clarke’s eyes are back on the arena, because the brunette with the beautiful bay in the huntseat class is back, having swapped her helmet and half-chaps for a cowboy hat and jeans. Lexa, Clarke remembers her name, is on the same leggy gelding from before, who stands out among all the squat quarter horses. He’s at least a hand-and-a-half taller than her little mare, who just barely clears pony size, and while he’s fidgeting in the chute, it looks to be with nerves instead of excitement.

Nevertheless, he can _move_ , and Clarke watches with interest as his long legs eat up the dirt and he weaves around the first barrel with surprising agility. But he’s throwing his head with frustration, or irritation, or both, and Lexa has a very tight grasp on his reins that is probably also her own anxiety bleeding through.

Clarke can see it coming before it happens: on the last barrel, Lexa is fighting his head too hard to keep a hold on his inside shoulder, and he knocks into the barrel, tipping it over as they breeze past. Lexa checks him hard as they run for home, likely having heard the barrel fall behind them, and they make their way back through the gate at an extended trot. 

Clarke doesn’t know what compels her to lead Boone over towards where Lexa and her gelding are weaving figure-eights in the field beside the arena, but Boone - back in her halter - is happy to bend down to lip at the grass while Clarke catches the other rider’s attention.

“Nice run out there,” she calls, and Lexa’s head snaps up like she’s startled. Her gelding is huffing and flicking his tail with barely suppressed frustration, and he shifts his weight repeatedly as she brings him to a stop. “Bad luck with that last barrel,” Clarke continues.

“He’s still very green on barrels,” Lexa replies, and her voice is stiffly polite, like she’s making conversation with a cashier at a store. “We’ve done better.”

Well then. Clarke tries a smile. “He’s a really gorgeous mover. I saw your hunt-seat class.”

Lexa just inclines her head rigidly, then turns her gelding away from Clarke to continue his serpentine exercises. Clarke glances back at Boone with raised eyebrows, mouthing, “Whatever.” The mare just stares at her, half-chewed grass spilling from her mouth. Clarke huffs a laugh and rubs her across the nose before leading her back towards Raven.

“That’s why I don’t like English riders,” she confides to Boone after they’ve left the other girl’s earshot. “They’re so stuck up.” Boone snorts in what Clarke likes to think is agreement and nuzzles the back of her arm gently.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: while I do ride western, I do NOT run barrels, so please shoot me a message with corrections if I'm getting anything wrong!


End file.
